


Conditional Fondness

by oorsprong



Series: That Unsteady Afterglow [7]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-11
Updated: 2016-02-11
Packaged: 2018-05-19 18:54:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5977516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oorsprong/pseuds/oorsprong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place immediately after the events of the last installment.  Kylo Ren contemplates an uncertain future.</p><p> </p><p>5/6 edit: Please check out the beautiful art that <a href="http://katherine1753.tumblr.com">Katherine1753</a> did for this story <a href="http://katherine1753.tumblr.com/post/143964079319/lessons-be-damned-it-couldnt-continue-he">here</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Conditional Fondness

The problem with Hux, Kylo reasoned as he lay awake after his disastrous attempt at intimacy, was that he didn’t see a problem.

 

How long could it continue-- any of it?

 

Not long by Kylo’s reckoning.  Once the map to Skywalker was located all the loose ends would come together.  Whatever was happening between them could be pushed aside in favor of the goals the Supreme Leader had for him.  The event he’d once looked forward to now loomed before him in dreadful clarity.

 

If the General himself worried about the future Kylo had not been able to pinpoint that worry.  He’d finally broken down and sifted through his thoughts.  The act was inexcusably rude but under the circumstances he was hard pressed to care.  What he’d found shocked him.

 

Hux cared about him.  It was a strange sort of caring; not selfless or noble or any of the things the high-minded hypocrites who’d raised him had taught him to expect.  This conditional fondness existed within the confines of mutual reward.  So long as Kylo nourished it he could be sure of receiving it.  The moment he stopped depositing into that internal bank of affection he would be permitted no further withdrawals.

 

Growing up, Kylo had been offered love in abundance; plentiful and suffocating.  Pushing away that fierce flood that wanted nothing more than to drag him under and keep him safe, close, protected-- that had been his first step towards the dark side.  Easy to toss away the bonds that felt like shackles.  Love for him had weakened his parents; made them soft and pliable.  He assumed it was so for everyone.

 

Yet for Hux it was an endless progression of feast and famine.  He had fought for every scrap of affection he’d ever been given and kept them, treasured and ordered.  Here was the memory of a mother who seemed to care.  Here were the kind words of an academy instructor.  Here in the recesses of his mind lurked a memory of the first girl who’d shyly confessed her interest.  Hux had been grateful for the attention, it mattered not at all that he couldn’t reciprocate. He’d carefully pieced together that sad patchwork of fuzzy memories into a flimsy quilt, shored it up with the devotion Kylo had shown him and now it sheltered them both.

 

Unsurprising, then, that the General didn’t think twice about accepting what Kylo gave freely.  This system born of pragmatism was wholly Hux.  Affection couldn’t be taken for granted because it couldn’t be counted on.  The amount of love and goodwill in the universe was finite.  When the affection stopped-- and deep in his mind Hux had already accepted that it must eventually stop-- he would have the memories to sustain him.  In this way the two men couldn’t have been less alike.  Kylo already felt a pang of loss whenever he allowed himself to dwell on eventualities.  He gazed at the softly snoring man beside him; that stupid shock of messy red hair that wanted smoothing, that slaw-jawed mouth that begged to be kissed.  He rolled over to resist the temptation.  

 

In his mind Hux was a vision of power and control, striding among his men and inspiring devotion.  That was the Supreme Leader’s General; the man who dared to challenge Kylo Ren.  Here beside him in the quiet of the night-time?   Brell who touched every inch of his body with reverence and offered him nothing but the promise of pain.

 

Lessons be damned, it couldn’t continue.

 

He flinched as a comforting arm slipped around his chest from behind.  

 

“I’m fine,” he answered, hoping the question would remain unasked.

 

“Mmm.. would you sleep better in your own bed?” Hux mumbled into the back of neck.

 

“No.”

 

He pushed away the growing certainty that he’d never sleep well again and settled in for the long night.

  
  



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